In Flames
by Morithil
Summary: With Westeros at her back Melisandre coaxes Stannis into enjoyment of desire from shadowmaking duty.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Game of Thrones, nay, not a smidgeon.

IN FLAMES

She lies with Westeros at her back.

Her clear eyes widen, lashes fanning upwards, batting softly against her porcelain skin, but it is not cold ceramic but warm milk and honey she is to him now, the much belated consolatory gift after years of dissatisfaction, dead sons and sideswept dreams.

Only she does not feel like consolation, but hope.

She was surprised at his sudden, swift-handed passion, unbending and severe like the rest of him, his gaze, his countenance, his words, his goals. Perhaps it showed in her face, when he grabbed her bodily, pulling her tight against what she had planned to brush into. It matters not, Melisandre mused to herself, what matters is what we make here this night, the son I will give him, the fire he will take and the shadows I will give. She inhaled sharply, and in the private corner of her mind where it was only her and her memories, her aborted feelings, she acknowledged the truth. The truth that his knife-edge change of intent, the firm grip in those long-boned fingers and the uncanny, simmering wildness in eyes that were perpetually flinty, set unchanging like the cliffs he laid her down upon – yes, she admitted, those gave the flicker of hot tongues in her womb and made her oil-slick and white hot to receive him.

Stannis does not bend.

_I will bend_, she thought, arching her spine into him, baring the line of her white throat, the ruby at its centre pulsing with the rhythm he set inside her. Demanding, brutal, unchanging, authoritative. He stokes the fires she holds in her flesh and her skin is luminous, the purity of pearl ash.

She had meant to draw it out longer, to spin slow seduction around him, to watch the stern face melt into surrender in stages, to kiss his neglected mouth and excite his thwarted loins with fingertips and whispers. It was almost with regret that she let him lift her bodily onto the table, the world beneath her back and its rebirth between her thighs, dewy now, kissed with heat and anticipation. In her tiny sanctuary, the one R'hllor granted her in his compassion, she feels an ache of something wistful for him, this lonely man with a history of aborted plans and a present of raging disappointments. She feels this something, this quiet tenderness for him with her former self, when she was younger, desperate, downtrodden.

She knows what it is to be cut down before you have even begun_. I was already a slave while still in my mother's womb_, she will whisper to him later, when he is quiet and thoughtful and hers,_ and The Lord of Light raised me and up and gave me you._

He had dissolved, wincing into her caresses, eyes closing like a man in pain. _My King_, she kissed velvet into his mouth, hot and trembling, Stannis shuddering like a cliff face before the first terrible slide of rock upon rock. What meager passions were you never granted that you should tremble so at my affections? What forgotten maid's existence did you lead before I was sent to you, allowing yourself only stagnant intimacy for duty's sake, churning your disgust inward at your own body's unslaked desires and repulsion for wife and whores?

But he does not love like a maid, she gasped, driven forcefully back along the table with the force of his thrusts. He takes with power, assurance –

And desperation, she notes, trailing her slender fingers against his close-cropped iron hair, seeing the surrender in his face at her touch, feeling the delicate pulse of his fire flicker at his temple. She brings both hands to his face now, Stannis flinching like a man struck but mouth opening in unexpected appreciation of the caress.

He had groaned like a dying man on pulling her robe off, holding her possessively against him, her bare thighs framing a hard, leather clad thigh. Men had lusted for her before, but none had broken quite so violently as the Son of Fire. She had been stunned, if only momentarily, with the force of his relent.

"Come to me, my King", she breathes, full of him but far from content, stroking his battle-hardened face, running her fingertips along his thin lips, darting in to pet the tongue inside. He shakes violently, head lowering, retracting into his stony shell and she rises up from the frozen bay beneath her and leads him down over her, his boots scuffing up from the stone floor. He halts abruptly, motionless within her, tensed like a wild animal seconds away from clawing her throat or pelting away.

"Do not pretend to me, woman", he grits though narrow teeth, avoiding her gaze, "you take no pleasure from my attentions"

She could be angry at him for that, but a priestess is above common fits of temper. She smiles faintly instead, clasping the back of his strong neck lightly, and slides herself up and off him. They both start at the separation, she a short hum in the back of her throat, he a ragged, shocked exclamation. She takes his sword hand in both of hers and leads it up the satin of her inner thigh, not once taking her eyes from his. She parts her legs further still, spanning the world under them and revealing that between them to his icy gaze.

"Does my King not see the proof of my pleasure?" she bated calmly, knowing herself to be sopping wet to both eye and touch, the contrast of cool sea air against her exposed nakedness only adding to her want. His eyes drop like stones. She brushed his hard fingertips against her soaked folds and did not have to try to coax the moan that seeped out unbidden from her red lips. Stannis' eyes were hooked on his fingers, smeared with her wetness, staring at them as if for the first time, sneering doubt and fragile disbelief warring in his face.

"Does my King not see - " writhing, mountains under her hips, the ocean surrounding her, "that my body is not only dutiful, but desirous?"

He wavers, a fort blasted with dragonfire. Harrenhal disappears under her vermilion tresses.

"Desirous of this, our union - ", grazing one hand against his hardness, the other painting a slow circle with his at her entrance, "desiring the knowledge of his body, the way he beds a woman, how his mouth tastes on her tongue, how his tongue tastes on -"

"I am not my brother" he grinds, a low, visceral threat completely at odds with the fingerpads now inside her, feeling her out like a map of uncharted territory.

"No, my King, no you are not" she comforts, feeling a slow burn of serpent heat coil inside her as his touch deepens. The flames beckon.

"You are so much _more_"

He breaks, lurching on top of her, fingers stabbing inside her and she can feel him shaking as his open mouth hovers over hers, to know kisses and not just a hard, brief fuck on the world that is there for the taking and his by right and by blood. She mewls, impaling herself on the frantic digits and makes love to his mouth with lips and tongue and teeth, tasting the newness of the sensations on all three, licking his moans into her own mouth and savouring their raw salt-sweetness. His tunic parts to her determined hands and she runs them over his skin, searing her flames into the lean, muscular body above hers and clasping his gaunt bulk to her heat. She reads what the touch of her breasts to his hard chest does to him clear as any bonfire, allowing herself to unwind in gasps as he explores her throat, darting from there to suck hotly on her pale shoulders as if he cannot decide where to turn his attention next.

She pulls him into her and this time it is smooth and sure, both of them vocal at the intrusion. She cradles his head as she draws vanguards in his mouth, surprised and pleased when his tongue answers, twines, joining with hers, combining their forces. His kisses are unyielding, blunt, unschooled but she is patient and shows him how to prolong their pleasure, teaches him the unhurried dance of lips and he proves himself an enthusiastic if hurried student. His hands are no longer cold iron at her hips, but forge-ready brands.

She kisses him as a lover should, and draws her magic from their inferno in burning strands. The fires rage higher and higher, sweeping across the Blackwater and stretching out across the Narrow Sea. They are both laid bare now, his garments burnt away as battlesmoke in the pyre. They crush battlements in their passion. Their outflung hands clasp as new strongholds. They crucify each other from cold sea to fertile downs. Her heels find his back, his mouth her hair. The Red Keep burns. He has yet to trust, but he moves within her assuredly, hopefully and with not a little love.


End file.
